When the Constitutional Convention voted in favour of same-sex
marriage at the weekend, Ireland took a step closer to rejecting the right of a
child to have the love of both a mother and a father where such are
available.

The Convention heard a great deal about the love two men or
two women can have for one another and the legal benefits they cannot access
because they cannot get married.

It spent less time discussing the
distinct and complementary roles of men and women as mothers and fathers and
when it did discuss the matter, took the view that the roles are not distinct
and complementary at all.

By logical extension it also took the view that
the natural ties don’t matter either. It will always be the case that any child
raised by a same-sex couple will be raised by only one of its biological
parents.

Therefore, if same-sex couples have the same rights as
opposite-sex couples to have children, then we must treat the natural ties as
being unimportant as well.

This flies in the face of all evidence. We
know, for example, that adopted children often go looking for their natural
parents in later life.

We know from the evidence that all other things
being equal, the best environment for a child is to be raised by their own
biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.

We do not know from the
available evidence whether children will suffer by comparison if raised by a
same-sex couple because the available evidence suffers from serious
methodological flaws.

We can therefore only base decisions on what we
know, and what we know is that the natural ties do matter and that the roles of
mothers and fathers are distinct and complementary. (For more on this, see here)

But the Convention, in its rush to be ‘tolerant’
has rejected this evidence and has thereby brought Ireland closer to the day
when it will turn its back on the notion that a child has a right to a father’s
love and a mother’s love.

This willingness to declare that motherhood and
fatherhood have no special value is being led by our politicians who made up a
third of the delegates at the weekend.

One of those politicians was
Children’s Minister, Frances Fitzgerald. It is truly an astonishing turn of
events when a minister for children is willing to sign away a child’s right to
be raised by a mother and a father.

(David Quinn, who addressed
the Convention, wrote about it in his column in The Irish Independent last
Friday. The column can be found here)